Howard left, leaving his office with his jaunty little walk. Leonard watched him go, knowing that he knew about him and Sheldon. He knew that he was in love with him, even if he didn't know any of what was going on. What was so wrong with that? Was it because Sheldon wasn't a girl? If he was in a relationship with a girl wouldn't everybody know? Did he have hang ups, too, despite thinking he was so modern and above all that? Or was it that he knew how Raj and Howard saw Sheldon? They saw all the OCD traits, the incessant hand washing and the constant cleaning of the apartment, cleaning that involved Q-tips into the deepest crevices. They saw the lack of understanding of humor and sarcasm, they saw his inability to divine anything from facial expressions and tones of voice. They saw all the corrections of grammar and the quoting of bizarre historical facts, they saw his lack of expression, his flat tone of voice, his tendency to dominate conversations.

There were things they didn't see. They didn't see his careless kindness, the way he would give Penny enormous amounts of money, the way he followed whatever rules those around him had. He would never knock on Penny's door before 11 in the morning. He would never make food with the various things that he, Leonard, was unable to eat. They didn't see his beauty, the incredible pale blue of his eyes, the way his lips came together, the off center deliciousness of his teeth.

He shook his head, putting all his papers away, turning off his computer. It was time to go. The ride home with Sheldon was one of the things he looked forward to everyday. He liked that time together, he liked the way the light looked, a dark yellow, and the way everything looked dusty through the windshield. He could feel the excitement in his chest and his stomach as he walked the distance from his office to Sheldon's.

Sheldon's office door was open when he got there and he peeked in. Sheldon was at his desk on the phone, and he was arguing with someone about one of the grants he was proposing. Even when he was impatiently listening he could see the irritation in his eyes. That was something else he liked about Sheldon, although it could rub most people the wrong way. He always thought that he was right. Leonard wished he could think that about himself for one glorious second.

"Alright, yes, we'll discuss this later," Sheldon said, and then he glanced up and saw Leonard in the doorway. His expression didn't change, he was still annoyed with whoever was on the phone. Leonard crept into the room as Sheldon hung up the phone.

"Ready?" Leonard said, looking at the intricate equations that covered every inch of the whiteboards that were in his office.

"Yes," Sheldon said, still not smiling at him, still looking irritated, his eyebrows knitted in consternation. Sheldon never left work at work. This conversation would probably make him frown all night, unless he could somehow distract him from it. He watched him neaten up his already painfully neat desk, he watched him stand up, pulling himself to his full height which was towering over him. He moved in his methodical way to retrieve his jacket from the closet and he shrugged into it, slipped his bag over one shoulder and across his chest.

He wanted to kiss him right now but this mood Sheldon was in wasn't conducive to it. He was terrified of trying to kiss him and having him pull away, so he always chose his moments very carefully. This wasn't one of them. But he could always look at him, gazing up at how tall he was, gazing into his large blue eyes.

As they walked across the campus to his car Leonard could see how irritable Sheldon was, he saw it in the way his fingers worked ceaselessly around the strap of his bag. He saw it in the way he looked down and to the side, his eyes slid to the corners just like one of the autistic kids in his mom's study used to do when he was irritated.

Autism. When Leonard felt like Sheldon's traits of it were cranked up to high volume he always worried. He worried about his state of mind because he knew these behaviors were a regression in a way, a way he dealt with upsetting situations. It was the grant proposal conversation, that was all it was. That was causing him to be silent and to have that expression, that was causing him to stim with his fingers on the strap of his bag. But it also made him worry in another way. When his mom was doing her brain imaging studies of kids with autism and kids without it, he always remembered that the non-autistic kids' brain scans lit up in certain areas when other people were around, and the autistic kids' brain scans didn't. He knew what it meant, it had to do with attention, it had to do with what was important to you on the neuronal level.

He looked at Sheldon now as they crossed the parking lot, and he was deeply inside of himself, unreachable. His fingers had an almost elegant rhythm as they moved up and down that piece of material. When he looked at him, or thought of him, what part of his brain would light up? Leonard shook his head, trying to remember when Penny said he wasn't a case in a textbook, but it was hard. He was a scientist and things fit into boxes. How could he get them out of this box?

"Sheldon," he said, wanting to draw him out of himself, wanting to connect with him, wanting to feel the elation he had felt when he saw his pancakes made to perfection and his favorite fork next to them.

"Yes?" Sheldon said, not looking at him, still moving his fingers, walking in his stiff way, shoulders almost hunched up, his back perfectly straight.

"Are you okay?" Leonard said, pleading in his head for Sheldon to look at him, just one brief glance. Sheldon licked his lips and clutched the strap of his bag, perhaps noticing the stimming behavior. He looked at Leonard, and Leonard could see how hard it was for him to look at him right now, how hard it was for him to stray from his comforting behaviors.

The look was brief, the clutching of the bag strap was brief. He looked down and away again, he moved his fingers to that internal soothing rhythm. Leonard shook his head, seeing the kids in his mom's study from when he was a kid himself, seeing the blank expressions and the way they would flap their hands or move their fingers in front of their eyes, the way they would focus on dust motes or flick little bits of lint into the air just to watch them fall.

"Leonard, I am not okay. It looks like I'm not going to get this grant, and there is no reason for that. My research is solid in this area, it's groundbreaking, and without the grant I don't see how I can push forward and make the tangible breakthroughs that are needed at this particular juncture..."

His speech, though delivered with little inflection, comforted Leonard a bit. It was work, it was physics, and he understood that. He'd been disappointed by grants that were blocked by bureaucracy and aggravating little details, too.

"Man, that sucks," Leonard said, trying to bring Sheldon back to here and now, back to him.

"Yes, it does," Sheldon said, looking at him again, smiling a little. Maybe he would let this go for now.

"It does," Leonard said, and reached out for his hand, and Sheldon didn't protest as he entwined his fingers with his and squeezed lightly. They reached the car and got in, and it was hot from sitting out in the California sun, and Leonard started the car and turned the air conditioning on, even though all it did was blow out hot air.